


we have not touched the stars

by WISHBONE



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Galra Keith (Voltron), Getting Back Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Episode: s02e08 The Blade of Marmora
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-19 20:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9458726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WISHBONE/pseuds/WISHBONE
Summary: Shiro finds Keith after the trials of the Blade of Marmora.We have not touched the stars,nor are we forgiven, which brings us backto the hero’s shoulders and the gentleness that comes,not from the absence of violence, but despitethe abundance of it.“Your eyes,” blurts Shiro, feeling foolish, and rapt, and desperate, desperately in love, “I’ve always loved them, always loved their colour. How they look brown in some light, blue in the next, and, when the light is perfect, violet. Do you remember watching sunsets on the roof of the Garrison? I swear that in those last moments before the sun slid behind the horizon your eyes were the very same colour as the sky.“Just because I know where it comes from now, it doesn’t-- Keith you have to know, it doesn’t change anything.”





	

Keith, when Shiro eventually finds him, is in the very last place he expects - his own bedroom. But here Keith undeniably is, sat on the edge of Shiro’s bed, staring at his knife where it rests on his knees. The sight of him - amongst Shiro’s sparse belongings of all places - sets off something loose and achingly familiar in him, an old dull yearning, a twitch in his fingers, a need to touch. To Shiro, Keith will always be a vision, even now, all deep wound tension and curled spine - a masterpiece. Shiro wretchedly quashes the urge to gentle his fingers across the exposed nape of Keith’s neck, quieting memories of all the times he would have wholly given into the impulse, safe in the knowledge that his affections were welcome, treasured things. Times long before jumping galaxies and skimming stars became their everyday extraordinary. Before his scars and metal arm, a midnight rescue. Back before he knew intimately the cold of Pluto’s smallest moon. Shiro aches.

Keith’s conspicuous absence from the bridge upon his, Lance and Pidge’s return from Beta Traz had struck a chord of worry within him that would not quiet, but neither Allura nor Coran had provided any insight into Keith’s whereabouts. Shiro was painfully aware that after returning from the Blade of Marmora’s headquarters, he and Keith hadn’t had the chance to be alone in the same room together, let alone talk about what had happened on the base, before being flung to galaxies at opposite edges of the universe. Eventually it had been Hunk who’d pulled Shiro aside to say he’d last seen Keith heading for their sleeping quarters, voice softened with uncharacteristic worry.

“I think you better go speak to him man. He still seems pretty cut up about the whole Galra thing. I tried to get him to loosen up about it while we were in the weblum, but,” Hunk shrugged “as soon as things quieted down he seemed to get lost in his own head again.” 

Looking at Keith now through the crack in the door Shiro thinks ruefully of just how right Hunk was, feeling the still novel relief that he is no longer Keith’s only friend. That Keith now has others who love him among the Paladins, who know him well enough to read him and recognise when he’s in need of help, who have seen past his status as the Garrison’s consummate loner and the phenomenal talent and natural standoffishness which so thoroughly isolated him from his peers is something that Shiro is ever grateful for. God knows that Keith, who has always carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, deserves it. 

Keith’s isolation back at the Garrison had been complete, a weight slowly stifling the younger man despite what he would have the rest of the world believe. Indeed, it had been a chance glimpse at one too many bruises not entirely covered by Keith’s fatigues which first prompted Shiro to reach out and offer himself as a sparring partner. Keith had been so suspicious at first, so wary of Shiro’s motivations, like a cornered alleycat. Still, his skepticism had slowly given way as he found his rhythm in hand to hand combat, natural talent shining through again, and emerging with it an easy dialogue with Shiro. Those late nights, alone together in an empty gym had unknowingly laid the foundations of the single most important relationship in Shiro’s life. 

Later, much later, when physical bruises no longer peppered Keith’s body, Shiro had agonised for months over his feelings for the younger man, desperately trying to tamp them down, feeling sickened with himself for experiencing them at all. Even if Shiro felt he could trace a map of Keith’s freckles from memory or the sound of Keith’s laugh occasionally took Shiro’s breath away, he was keenly aware of just how much it had taken for Keith to let him in as a friend, could still picture vividly the way the younger man flinched in the first tentative months of their friendship when Shiro called his name across the halls, as if expecting cruelty and not a kindness. To sabotage that with something so selfish as loving him was, to Shiro, unforgivable. A betrayal of trust of the highest order. 

Keith, of course, had surprised him again, the way he was always surprising Shiro, by one day pressing a soft, excruciatingly soft, kiss to Shiro’s lips in the middle of sparring practice, having just pinned him down in an impressive show of agility and strength. Keith had drawn back so quickly, _too quickly_ , face seemingly frozen in shock at his own actions and promptly fled the gym. Shiro had been unable to do anything but lay on the mat in stunned silence, mind replaying those few seconds on loop and fingers gently touching his own lips before he’d gathered the presence of mind to chase after Keith, wings on his ankles and heart soaring. The memory makes Shiro’s chest ache. He shakes his head refocusing on the Keith before him. Older, sharper, still infinitely precious. 

“Hey,” Shiro calls softly so as not to startle him, “I missed you out there.”

Keith’s whole body still starts before his gaze softens where it falls on Shiro. “Yeah,” He slumps a little, “I guess I just needed some space.”

Too many responses clamour in Shiro’s mouth, clumsy and imperfect. _So you chose here? My bedroom? Did you not think I would come look for you? Don’t you realise I’m always looking for you? You’re so close but so far. We’re like satellites out of orbit. I can’t bear it, but I will, for you._ Rather than voice them he just moves to join Keith on the bed, tries not to let his heart sink too far when he feels Keith stiffen as he settles next to him, watches his eyes jolt away, like they have so often these past months. 

The thing is, thinks Shiro, they just haven’t had the _time._ So little time since he returned to earth only to be rescued by by the boy beside him, filled with so much. Shiro knows that Keith grieved for him, had thought him dead. There are still days when he catches Keith looking at him like he can’t quite believe his eyes, something very near to heartbreak writ across his face. Shiro doesn’t know how you’re supposed to come back from that. The trials of the Blade of Marmora had just cemented his doubts. To see himself as Keith’s greatest fear and greatest desire, it made Shiro simultaneously breathless with hope and lament with despair. He has been the cause of so much of Keith’s suffering.

All at once Shiro cannot bear it, cannot stand to have Keith keep himself from him a moment longer. He breathes deeply, once, twice, before curling his hand to the bolt of Keith’s jaw, turning his face until they look each other directly in the eye for the first time in what feels like months. Keith is wide eyed with shock at his touch, gaze jumping wildly around the room before settling on Shiro. His breath comes fast and shallow and Shiro watches - transfixed by the delicate skin of his eyelids, the swoop of his lashes - as he closes his eyes, taking long, slow breaths to calm himself the way Shiro taught him years ago. After a moment, he opens them again and looks directly at Shiro, his gaze a complex mix of defiance, fear and affection.

 _Ah,_ thinks Shiro, _there you are._

“Your eyes,” blurts Shiro, feeling foolish, and rapt, and desperate, desperately in love, “I’ve always loved them, always loved their colour. How they look brown in some light, blue in the next, and, when the light is perfect, violet. Do you remember watching sunsets on the roof of the Garrison? I swear that in those last moments before the sun slid behind the horizon your eyes were the very same colour as the sky.

“Just because I know where it comes from now, it doesn’t-- Keith you have to know, it doesn’t change anything.” Shiro finishes, his heart hammering wildly in his chest.

Keith’s face crumples before him, anguish scrawled large across his face. His words are tight, ground out of him. “Shiro. Shiro, of course it changes something, it changes _everything_. I’m one of them! They tortured you, they took your _arm_ and I-” Tears well Keith’s eyes and Shiro’s heart breaks a little bit more as he watches him desperately try and blink them away. “I’m one of them. I never told you but with the Quintessence… I saw my skin _change_. How can you even bear to touch me?”

It’s like all the air leaves Shiro’s lungs at once, like gravity decides to rearrange itself around him, Shiro’s stomach swooping at Keith’s words. The Quintessence, the Galran transport hub, but that was… that was months ago. Keith, _his_ Keith, has been struggling under the weight of this for so long. Has been pulling himself away trying to protect Shiro, has believed, has actually believed that this could change the way Shiro feels, that Shiro would ever willingly leave him. 

All Shiro’s doubts and desires resolve at once. He recognises this moment as the threshold it is, knowing he must step forward or risk losing Keith to this forever.

Shiro shifts his hand, hooking it firmly around the nape of Keith’s neck and pulling him forward until their foreheads touch. Keith complies, but holds himself stiff, spine a straight line screaming of tension. Shiro’s only hope is the sigh that escapes Keith's lips, like the action brings him both pain and relief at once. Distantly, he registers the knife clatter to the floor.

“What I can’t bear,” whispers Shiro, his voice low and rough around the pain high in his throat, “is not having you with me, like this, just like this. There is not a universe that exists where I don’t love you. There is nothing you could do which would make me love you less, nothing you could be which could change this.” He feels Keith’s hands come up to fist in his shirt, knuckles tight against his chest, and watches as his eyes clench, tears finally spilling. “I’m sorry for the time I left you alone. I’ll never forgive myself for making you hurt the way I did. I never would have survived that year without the thought of you at home to keep me fighting. I checked the stars I could see from my cell every night to see if I could recognise any constellations. I used to imagine you looking up at them too.”

Shiro feels the moment Keith relents like a gunshot, folding forward into his chest like a puppet with his strings cut. Shiro’s arms come up around him without conscious thought as sobs wrack his smaller frame. Shiro buries his face in Keith’s hair, feeling something in his chest unfurl at it’s smell, so familiar, so much like home. He peppers the side of Keith’s face with kisses where he can reach, unthinking, unselfconscious, trying to pour all of his love into each press of his lips. They stay like that a long time, Shiro feeling weightless with relief but his grip never wavering around Keith's form.

Later, when Keith quiets, his hand having snaked under the hem of Shiro’s shirt, fingers tracing absent patterns, Shiro allows himself to pull back enough to see Keith’s face. His skin is tear tracked, blotchy and red. Shiro still thinks he’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. He presses his metal hand to Keith’s cheek to cool his overheated skin before once again cupping his jaw, allowing his thumb to stoke the light stubble there. 

Keith eyes roam his face hungrily, as if searching for confirmation of Shiro’s words. In the low light of the bedroom they’re a deep plum and Shiro is lost to them instantly. When they finally settle, Keith seemingly satisfied with what he’s found, Shiro cannot help but pull him in for a kiss, his whole being straining with love for the boy in his arms. Keith meets him halfway, that same soft sigh breezing over Shiro’s lips, and Shiro understands now the contradiction of that sound, relief so intense it hurts; a rapture, exultation. 

The last thing he sees before he closes his eyes is purple.

**Author's Note:**

> as ever you can find me at https://kogains.tumblr.com.
> 
> title and excerpt are from Siken's 'snow and dirty rain.'
> 
> i appreciate all comments and criticisms!


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